phrenograph

English

Etymology

From phreno- +‎ -graph.

Noun

phrenograph (plural phrenographs)

1. (physiology) An instrument for registering the movements of the diaphragm, or midriff, in respiration.
   • 1902, William Senhouse Kirkes, Kirkes': Handbook of Physiology, page 266:

     Finally, it has been found possible in various ways to record the diaphragmatic movements by the insertion of tn elastic bar connected with a tambour into the abdomen below it (phrenograph) , by the insertion of needles into different parts of its structure, or by recording the contraction of isolated strips of the diaphragm.

   • 1904, Winfield Scott Hall, A Manual of Experimental Physiology for Students of Medicine:

     Without varying the adjustment of the phrenograph take a tracing while repeatedly interrupting the respiration by holding the nostrils. What does the phrenogram show?

2. A phrenological profile; a delineation of a person's characteristics based on a phrenological examination.
   • 1895 February, “Regarding Phrenographs”, in The Phrenological Journal:

     The accuracy and value of a phrenograph, therefore, must depend upon the learning, judgment and skill of the person who makes it, and its defects should not be charged to phrenology considered as a system of mental philosophy.

   • 2002, Leroy Garrett, The Stone-Campbell Movement, page 268:

     Selina Campbell, who was the one who ordered the phrenograph in the first place, almost certainly read it in a different light.

Anagrams

• nephrograph